Rafiq Muhammad and other members of Thorncliffe Park's ethnically diverse community came to a neighbourhood barbecue with some questions about Saskatchewan.

[...]

"Saskatchewan is a booming economy but I don't know much about it," said Muhammad, who has a degree in electrical engineering from a university in Lahore, Pakistan. "I'm here to see if we can really fit in."

Muhammad was typical of those who showed up to a meal of tandoori chicken and curry hosted by Saskatchewan's worker-hunting labour ministry yesterday evening in E.T. Seaton Park. He arrived in Canada recently, had gone through an initial period of hardship, but was now underemployed and worried about how he would raise his children.

He, like others, came to see whether it was possible to escape Ontario's lagging manufacturing economy, Toronto's fierce competition among skilled new immigrants, and the crime and hassle of the big city. And they wondered whether they might find a better life out west, in Canada's fastest growing provincial economy, among Saskatchewan's 10,000-odd available jobs.

"We have a people shortage," Saskatchewan Premier Brad Wall told the crowd.

Someone should tell Muhammed that mass immigration makes the competition among skilled new immigrants so fierce and has contributed significantly to the crime and the hassle of the big city.

Anyhow, I think I know what Muhammed's problem is. Would you, as an employer, hire someone with a degree from a University in Lahore, Pakistan. I didn't think so. You'd wait for something better to come along and since Canada literally doubles the number of engineers looking for work each year through immigration you probably wouldn't have to wait very long. This is why so many immigrants with engineering degrees are driving taxis or are underemployed as is Muhammed's case. It has less to do with a lack of recognition of their credentials and more to do with the fact that there were no jobs for them in their field when they arrived here. And what makes Muhammed's situation all the more dire is that year after year after year Canada imports more and more engineers who will compete with Muhammed and other immigrants as well as Canadians for a finite number of electrical engineering positions. That's how Canada's immigration system is a disservice to immigrant and Canadian alike. It is out of touch with the reality of the existing labour market.

I should also point out that the immigration points system grants equal weight to a degree from a University in Lahore, Pakistan to one from, say, Oxford University. Should we be allowing immigrants to come to Canada with false hopes knowing that they will be competing with people who hold western degrees and may well end up being underemployed? Should we be more picky and weed out immigrants with degrees from lesser universities - for lack of a better way to put it - to favour those who will most likely succeed in the Canadian labour market because they hold western degrees? And even some immigrants who hold degrees from western Universities are having a tough time. We like to say it is due to systemic discrimination but the real reason may be the most obvious and logical one: there are no jobs for them here. Canada is just wasting their lives.

So far the article seems like a puff piece reminding Canadians how much they need immigrants to fill job vacancies, a ploy to entice Canadians to begrudgingly support a policy they otherwise disagree with. The question that needs to be asked are what kinds of jobs are going unfilled? This paragraph, albeit a short one, is the most telling one of the piece:

The premier, for his part, admitted that many of these new Canadians were overqualified for the jobs his province needs to fill.

What do you think he means by that? Are "booming" Saskatchewan's 10,000 odd jobs mostly counter help at fast food restaurants, nannies, general labourers, security workers, truck drivers, retail sales staff, and a myriad of part-time and temp positions? If immigrants knew that these were the only jobs available to them before they applied to come to Canada would they still apply? Is Canada lying to immigrants and ruining their lives? Canada needs to be more honest to immigrants before they make a big mistake and decided to come here. It's the compassionate thing to do is it not?

If you are in the process of seeking asylum or been refused asylum in the UK, you will not be able to apply for asylum in another member country of the European Union.

I believe this is to discourage, if not stop, what is known as asylum shopping.

However, if your asylum claim has been refused and the Home Office do not intend to remove you by force or cannot obtain travel documents to facilitate your removal, continuing to live in the UK with out the right to work or access to the normal benefits UK citizens are entitled to, life for you in the UK will be very harsh.

Likewise you may have made a claim years ago but Home Office has failed to make a final decision.

You may wish to find another country that will accept you as an economic migrant or refugee. Many refugees in the UK with out status are highly skilled.

Refugee/Economic Admission ProgrammesMany countries have ‘Refugee’ or ‘Economic’ programmes, which allow refugees or people seeking work to apply for entry into their country from another country, which is not the country of residence of the applicant.

Notably Canada, who have various schemes to facilitate entry for refugees and economic migrants.

Groups and individuals in Canada can sponsor refugees from abroad who qualify to come to Canada. They can also sponsor people seeking work. Settled refugees in Canada can sponsor family members outside Canada to join them.

If you are removed from the UK back to: Colombia - Sierra Leone - DR Congo - Sudan - El Salvador - Guatemala, you may be able to apply to enter Canada direct as a refugee.

If you are removed from the UK back to any other countries if you can find a sponsor/s in Canada, you may be able to migrate to Canada.

The question I ask is if a country like the United Kingdom, or any European country for that matter and the United States as well, rejected an individual's asylum claim then why shouldn't Canada? Is it because we are more morally superior than these other countries; that we are right and they are wrong? Or are we the most naive?

After reading this from the Toronto Star I wondered to myself as to how a Filipino immigrant who was convicted of assault and attempted rape in 1986 while living in California was able to secure Canadian citizenship in the mid 1990s.

Elizabeth Hoffschneider's nude and battered body was found in the bedroom of her Huntington Beach, Calif., apartment more than two decades ago.

Police collected and preserved hair and fiber evidence and, in CSI-like fashion, forensic scientists last year matched the DNA profile to Gerald Su Go, a Canadian citizen.

Toronto police arrested Su Go last fall and today Ontario Superior Court justice Todd Archibald ruled there is "more than ample evidence" to justify the committal of Su Go, who is also known as Gerald Go, for murder.

[...]

Asked if he had any questions for the judge, Su Go's lawyer, Vanessa Arsenault, said no. Under the Extradition Act, he has 30 days to appeal the decision. Su Go is originally from the Phillippines but became a Canadian citizen in the mid-1990s.

The 38-year-old woman, who worked as an office manager at a medical company, was sexually assaulted, beaten and strangled on Nov. 15, 1984. Two co-workers, concerned that she was not at work, went to her apartment and found her body. Her apartment was ransacked and her wallet, identification and diamond pendant were missing.

[...]

The DNA profile in the three hairs was matched through the California Dept. of Justice database to Su Go. According to the newspaper, he was in that database after being convicted of a 1986 assault and attempted rape in Costa Mesa.

However, he fled California before he was sentenced and was a fugitive for 17 years until his arrest in New York in 2004.

So to recap this "Canadian" was convicted of assault and attempted rape on 1986 in California and went on the lam for 17 years during which he managed to become a Canadian citizen. And now he is wanted for murder.

How was a convicted criminal able to get himself Canadian citizenship? The most obvious answer is most likely the correct one: he lied. And I wouldn't be surprised if he used the refugee system to do it. To obtain approval to enter Canada as a landed immigrant takes a while, a long while, however all a refugee claimant has to do is set foot on Canadian soil and say "refugee" and you're in the country and the system which could take years to process. He most likely ditched any form of identification that would allow Canadian authorities to perform any background check to see if he is telling the truth about who he is. And for successfully gaming the most easily exploitable refugee system in the world we rewarded him with our much cherished citizenship.

This is all speculative because I don't really know how this convicted criminal evading the U.S. justice system was able to get Canadian citizenship. But it is most likely how it happened because as inept as our immigration system is I don't see how this particular individual would have been able to become a Canadian citizen if the truth were known. This shows how easily one can lie to get Canadian citizenship as a refugee claimant and why it is the choice route for criminals and economic migrants posing as bogus refugees. Unscrupulous immigration consultants even advise their clients to file a refugee claim if all else fails even if it means just a delay in their inevitable deportation.

Friday, 26 September 2008

Rather than climbing over each other promising to increase the number of immigrants to Canada, party leaders should acknowledge that levels are already too highJames Bissett, Citizen SpecialPublished: Thursday, September 18, 2008

There are already close to a million immigrants waiting in the backlog to come here. They have all met the requirements and by law must be admitted. There is also a backlog of 62,000 asylum seekers before the refugee board and even if these are not found to be genuine refugees most will be allowed to stay. In addition, there are between 150,000 and 200,000 temporary workers now in the country and here again it is unlikely many of them will ever go home.

Despite these extraordinary numbers, the Harper government wants to raise the immigration intake next year to 265,000. The Liberals and the New Democrats have said they want even more, as much as one per cent of our population, or 333,000 each year.

[...]

Let's face the facts -- when there is a turndown in the world economy and dire predictions of serious recession or worse this is not the time to be bringing thousands of newcomers to Canada. In July of this year Ontario alone lost 55,000 jobs -- so what is the rationale for more immigration? The fact is there is no valid rationale. There is only one reason why our political parties push for high immigration intake and that is they see every new immigrant as a potential vote for their party. This is not only irresponsible; it borders on culpable negligence.

[...]

Moreover, there is no evidence that a larger labour force necessarily leads to economic progress. Many countries whose labour forces are shrinking are still enjoying economic buoyancy. Finland, Switzerland and Japan are only a few examples of countries that do not rely on massive immigration to succeed.

Productivity is the answer to economic success, not a larger population.

[...]

It also explains why a study published this year by professor Herbert Grubel of Simon Fraser University revealed that the 2.5 million immigrants who came to Canada between 1990 and 2002 received $18.3 billion more in government services and benefits in 2002 than they paid in taxes. As Prof. Grubel points out, this amount is more than the federal government spent on health care and twice what was spent on defence in the fiscal year of 2000/2001. Isn't it time our party leaders were made aware of this study?

Surprisingly The Globe and Mail turned the spotlight onto James Bissett and not negatively either. Read the Globe piece here.

While most politicians won't touch this stuff with a barge poll, one man daring to do so is James Bissett, a former bureaucrat and diplomat (he was Canada's ambassador to Yugoslavia in the early 1990s). Mr. Bissett was a member of a four-member task force in the 1960s that developed Canada's immigration points system. He later became executive director of the Canadian Immigration Service. He has a son married to a black woman and a daughter married to a Cuban.

[...]

Mr. Bissett was in a recent TV debate with NDP immigration critic Olivia Chow. Things got heated. “Look, you're supposed to be a socialist,” Mr. Bissett told her as they exited the set, “and you want to bring in 330,000 to undercut Canadian unions and workers' wages?” She wasn't amused.

I suspect Olivia Chow is allowing political necessity influence her stance on immigration. Same can be said with her husband NDP leader Jack Layton. Both of them are running in urban Toronto ridings that are home to a large number of immigrants particularly Asian immigrants. It surely cannot be ideology. Immigration has been, and continues to be, a key weapon in undermining union strength and attacking wage gains and incomes of working Canadians thus redirecting wealth into fewer and richer hands. I do not not know when and how the NDP had lost sight of this as I too have wondered why the NDP is not only pro mass-immigration but is also advocating increased numbers.

Mr. Bissett has, you might say, a rather cynical view of multiculturalism. In the old days, he explained, politicians used party funds to buy ethnic votes. But, in the 1970s, he said, they decided the taxpayers should pay. “They institutionalized multiculturalism. They set up a multiculturalism department with a big budget, and the big budget was used to bribe ethnic voters. On their annual national days, they get subsidies for their ethnic newspapers and so on.”

[...]

You hear a lot of grumbling at cocktail parties, but, he noted, people don't speak out openly about the social and economic costs for fear of being labelled racist. Toronto and Vancouver are on their way to becoming Asian cities, Mr. Bissett said. That may be fine, but let's talk about it. “Or are we just going to kind of go sleepwalking into the 21st century?”

I'm sure we are all nodding our heads in agreement. I used to think that only I harboured concerns about immigration and what it is doing and will do to Canada. And I thought I was alone in having reservations about multiculturalism as social policy. So I kept quite partly out of fear of being called a racist. That is until I started talking to people and became more vocal about my opposition. Aside from a few who spewed the usual rhetoric I discovered that many Canadians feel the same way I do. In fact I'd say most. This is what prompted me to start this blog.

Many have an old-fashioned romantic idea of immigration, he said, but this is a different world. “You don't go out to the Prairies and make sod huts for the winter and plant seeds for the summer.” He agrees Canada has a humanitarian role to play, but his view is that it is better done through greatly increased foreign aid than adding 300,000 job seekers annually in difficult times.

OTTAWA – Statistics Canada says the country's fertility rate hit a 10-year high in 2006, but that women are waiting longer to have children.

The agency reports that average number of children per woman rose to 1.59 in 2006 from 1.54 in 2005.

Statscan says there were 354,617 births in Canada two years ago, an increase of 3.6 per cent – or 12,441 births – from the year before.

The agency says it was the largest annual increase since 1989 and that the figure marked the fourth consecutive year of growth.

[...]

Quebec and Alberta were the largest contributors to the national increase in births, accounting for 70 per cent of the total increase.

This is good news for a nation concerned about an aging demographic. This is also the ideal route for nation building because the natural growth rate is the most effective way to combat a potentially declining population. Relying solely on immigration is too costly for it to be a solution. Immigration also creates problems regarding integration, social cohesion and colonialism, language problems, racism and fear of the "other" (Canadians are the "other" to immigrants in case you "progressives" fail to see that). Let's hope the trend continues.

The government should seize on this trend and encourage its growth by rewarding those Canadians who choose to have children. The government should also make it possible for those who want kids to have them. This is responsible governance and an investment in the health and future of this great nation.

The federal Conservatives want to limit acceptance of skilled workers into Canada to 38 occupations, a move that will not serve regional labour needs, says Ontario immigration minister Michael Chan.

The proposed changes, Chan said, were described by Immigration Minister Diane Finley to her provincial counterparts in Ottawa this month. Provinces now worry they will have to expand their own immigration programs and compete to fill labour shortages, Chan said.

[...]

The new limits on occupations would give Ottawa leeway to reject most applicants, Chan said.

Finley said yesterday the specific list of desired occupations won't be made public until later this fall.

I don't know how this will play out but so far it appears to be a good idea. Not only does Canada accept too many immigrants we also accept too many immigrants who presence here floods the labour market with superfluous skills. For instance, Canada imports just as many engineers into the country as it produces in the nation's engineering schools effectively doubling the number of engineers looking for work in the Canadian labour market. This partly explains why some immigrant engineers are driving taxi cabs.

Also, Canada boasts the highest proportion of citizens who posses a university or college degrees than any other G8 nation, more so than the United States, Germany, or Japan. Canada does not need more University educated immigrants. We have enough already.

True, shortages can and do exist from time to time but it is being overstated. Much of those crying for workers are employers in low waged sectors of the economy such as domestics, retail sales, and fast food restaurants.

There are those who have made careers out of Canada's mass immigration system and their cries of opposition are to be expected:

Yesterday's revelation of the latest federal immigration wrinkle shocked advocacy groups and service agencies in Greater Toronto, catch basin for thousands of Canada's newcomers and a key battleground in the current federal election campaign.

The policy changes "make you wonder what's behind the agenda ... political ploy or not, we are playing with real people's lives," said Debbie Douglas of Ontario Council of Agencies Serving Immigrants.

Makes you wonder what's behind these advocacy groups and service agencies agenda. Do they really care about immigrant's lives? Or are they trying to protect their jobs? Has it occurred to them that It might actually be in the immigrant's best interest to be denied entry to Canada in the first place? Unless, of course, it was their life long dream to drive a taxi cab on Toronto's streets, to chauffeur around Canada's "progressive" elites whose jobs are not threatened by mass immigration. In that case being denied entry to Canada would be a major disappointment.

Wednesday, 24 September 2008

Spain has fallen prey to mass immigration and its partner in crime, multiculturalism, and now the country is paying for it. With an immigration system described as being "run amok" Spain found itself granting an amnesty to over 800,000 undocumented workers, and now it is offering to pay unemployed immigrants a lump sum and two years benefits if they return to their home countries. Also, there are growing concerns of race riots amid rising unemployment.

More than 920,000 new immigrants arrived in Spain during 2007, according to data just published by the Spanish National Statistics Institute (INE). This comes on top of the 802,971 new arrivals in 2006, the 682,711 new arrivals in 2005, the 645,844 new arrivals in 2004, and so on. The politically sensitive figures were released during the middle of the summer holidays, presumably in an effort to avoid their detection by the vacationing general public.

All in all, Spain now has a total of 5.2 million immigrants, who make up more than 10 percent of Spain’s population, which has swelled from 40 million in 2000 to just over 46 million as of 1 January 2008. According to the Fundación BBVA [doc] research institute, Spain now has the largest number of immigrants in the developed world after the United States.

Environmentalists take note. Immigration swelled Spain's population well beyond what it would have been naturally. Also, compare Spain's and Canada's foreign born population figures. Immigrants constitute well over 10% of the Spanish population. In Canada that figure is close to 20%, second only to Australia with 22%.

But the biggest significance of the new data is not that there are a lot of new immigrants in Spain, which is perfectly self-evident to everyone in the country. What the fresh numbers show is that there are now over one million new illegal immigrants in Spain; this less than three years after Socialist Prime Minister José Luis Rodríguez Zapatero tried to “fix” Spain’s illegal immigration problem by granting the largest blanket amnesty in Spanish history to nearly one million other illegal immigrants.

BBC News has the story of the amnesty here. This paragraph deserves particular attention:

Spain has rejected criticism from the opposition and other European countries that the amnesty makes the country a gateway for illegal immigrants.

Apparently the critics were right as the number of illegals swelled after Spain issued the amnesty. And the smug rejection of the criticism is par for the course here in Canada amongst our ruling elites who ignore, marginalize, or downplay any symptom of a failing immigration system and the social discord as well as the economic discord it is having on the country.

Here's more from the Brussels Journal piece:

At the time of the unilateral amnesty in 2005, Zapatero, who never misses an opportunity to preach about the merits of multilateralism, earned public rebukes from leaders of most of the major European countries, who said the amnesty would cause a surge in illegal immigration. For example, French President Nicolas Sarkozy said: “We see the damage caused by the phenomenon of massive regularization. Every country which has conducted an operation of massive regularization finds itself the next month [in a position that] does not allow it to master the situation anymore.”

Sarkozy’s warning was prescient (or perhaps just a dose of plain common sense), because by rewarding illegal immigrants with Spanish (and thus European) documentation, Zapatero unleashed what is known as the “call effect” to people as far away as Kashmir who now believe that Spain is an easy gateway into Europe. Zapatero’s politically correct leniency has, in fact, triggered an avalanche of uncontrolled immigration.

The rest of the article is a worth while read because the parallels are uncanny. It notes that Spain turned to mass immigration as the cheap and easy solution to "sustaining the construction boom that provided Spain with some of the highest economic growth rates in Europe for more than a decade." However, "the housing bubble recently collapsed and Spain suddenly finds itself in the middle of an unprecedented economic crisis" burdening Spain with "the highest level of unemployment in the euro-zone." Now what is to be done with all those immigrants, "many of whom are now drawing from, instead of contributing to, Spain’s financially unsustainable social security system"?

Spain is now forced to deal harshly with its immigration policy. It has no choice. Spain "will stop hiring immigrants in their countries of origin next year because of rising unemployment...cut the number of work visas 'to roughly zero' in 2009" and "pay unemployed foreigners to return to their countries." You can read about the last item here.

Ideologues are enemies to common sense and Spain, like Canada, is chock full of them in all the wrong places. The Brussels Journal article points out that:

...Spanish Socialists...refuse to let a pesky little problem like unemployment undermine their project to turn Spain into multicultural utopia. Spanish Vice President María Teresa Fernández de la Vega, who also happens to be Spain’s high priestess of political correctness, lashed out at Corbacho with uninhibited rage. In a cabinet meeting two days after his announcement, de la Vega reprimanded Corbacho: “We should not say that phrase,” referring to the words “roughly zero.” She added: “There will be recruitment of foreign workers in their country of origin because we need them.”

Sound familiar?

Canada already allows temporary workers into the country and plans to admit more. The thing about temporary workers is that they don't leave. As the saying goes "there is nothing more permanent than a temporary worker." I am concerned that as the numbers of temporary and undocumented workers swells in Canada, coupled with a combined immigration and refugee backlog in excess of 1 million calls for a blanket amnesty will be made to clean up the mess with total disregard to the social and economic problems such a move will create.

Spain is providing pertinent warning signs but who is paying attention? Canadians are incessantly told that we need mass immigration to fill job vacancies but what job vacancies? Could it be counter help at fast food restaurants, domestics, or hotel cleaning staff? Could it be to fill the 1/3 of all jobs that are temp jobs? For years we were told Canada, like Spain, needs immigrants to sustain its construction boom but there are signs that the boom is coming to an end as housing starts are down and Alberta experiences layoffs in the construction sector. Ontario, Canada's traditional economic engine, is being hard hit in the manufacturing sector and is courting "have not" status. In spite of all of this no federal political party is willing to consider a decrease in immigration numbers. In fact we hear the opposite as a chorus of voices of all political stripes sing more, more, more. Who is going to stand up for Canada and do what is right?

Saturday, 20 September 2008

It seems Indians living in the Punjab region of India feel that it is their right to immigrate to Canada. They should understand that Canada is a sovereign nation and it has no obligation to let them immigrate here. The only right they have to come to Canada is the one we give them and, humanitarian concerns aside, it is this country's right to deny them entry if it is ascertained that they will not serve the economic interests of this country. But there's more to this story. Read it here at the Toronto Star.

NEW DELHI–Police in India's capital city broke up a group of Punjabi demonstrators marching to the Canadian High Commission to protest derogatory comments allegedly made by a Canadian visa official.

[...]

New Delhi police stopped the rally after about 15 minutes, but allowed a delegation of four Punjabis to continue to the high commission to meet staff.

Singh said more than 1,000 protesters showed up for the march, while New Delhi police spokesperson Rajan Bhayat said the figure was closer to 200. Bhayat said the marchers were dispersed because they were in a no-protest area of the city where "groups of more than five are not allowed."

The protesters were up in arms over comments allegedly made by a Canadian visa officer last year and a delay in a subsequent government investigation.

Federal Immigration Minister Diane Finley began a review of visa officer Brian Hudson in December after he allegedly told a delegation of university and college officials from Canada he didn't understand why Canada recruits immigrants from the Punjab, where crime, forgery and human-trafficking rates are purportedly higher than some other jurisdictions in India.

According to the National Crime Records Bureau, Punjab is actually among India's least crime-ridden states. Of the country's 35 states, 10 had crime rates lower than Punjab in 2006 and only four states reported lower rates for violent crimes.

Statistically it may be true to say that the Punjab is among India's least crime-ridden states but if it is low because other states rank higher due to a one or two percentage point difference then it isn't saying much. India is one of the most corrupt countries in the world, always on the cusp of social and political unrest.

The protest comes amid complaints that 90 per cent of temporary visa requests from the Canadian mission in Chandigarh are rejected. Chandigarh, a city of about 900,000, serves as the capital to two northern Indian states – Punjab and Haryana.

[...]

The refusal rate for temporary visa requests from the Canadian mission in Chandigarh, India, is 50 per cent, the spokesperson said, not the 90 per cent claimed by protesters.

At first I wasn't going to blog about this story until I read that this concerned the Canadian mission in Chandigarh, India. This mission was opened by the Liberal government allegedly to reward Indo-Canadian voters - primarily Sikh voters - for voting Liberal and at a cost to the tax payer of $25 million a year to run. It is the only foreign diplomatic mission in the city and since its opening "nanny schools" popped up around town producing male nanny graduates in a culture where such work is the realm of females. I blog about it here.

The Canadian mission in Chandigarh was opened irrespective of warnings that the Indian city is a "hotbed of false documents". Indian activists in Canada pressured the Liberal government to open the mission and the Liberals obeyed because politics trumps policy. The Chandigarh mission does not serve the needs of Canada and Canadians. It only serves the colonial ambitions of the Indian community. The mission is a waste of money and it only provides another avenue for immigration fraud. Canada should close the mission in Chandigarh, India now!

Sunday, 14 September 2008

Here is an old piece from the National Post but it is relevant considering the election environment Canadians find themselves in yet again. Some of the figures given in the piece are a little dated but the point being made is not.

Liberals playing Immigration Card

File is a matter of politics, not policy, for both partiesJohn Ivison in Ottawa, National Post Published: Friday, February 23, 2007

There is clearly no room for sentiment in this process of natural selection, but for the Liberals to pin the blame for the ills of the immigration system on the Conservatives is cynical in the extreme. The system is indeed sick: The backlog of applications from potential immigrants now totals 800,000, up from 50,000 when the Liberals took office in 1993; only a quarter of all immigrants are net fiscal contributors to Canada, at an estimated cost to the taxpayer every year of more than $18-billion; the refugee process is more sympathetic to Mexicans than displaced Africans fleeing rape and torture in Darfur and so on.

The backlog is now in excess of 900,000 and chasing 1 million. Studies state that somewhere between 17-25% of all applicants are selected for economic reasons. Knowing this we can assume that the vast majority of those in the backlog are immigrants whose contribution will be negligible at best being granted entry to Canada because they have a relative here. To be blunt, Canada is being swamped with immigrants it does not need and will most likely be a fiscal burden to Canadian tax payers then a net contributor.

The truth is that the two parties have broadly similar platforms when it comes to this file: Both would invest similar sums of money (the Conservatives promise more in the estimates for the current year compared with Liberal forecasts from the 2005 estimates, but the Liberals pledged new spending in their pre-election economic update) and both would allow about a quarter of a million new immigrants every year.

Neither has offered up a convincing vision of how to stop the rot in a system that has gained international notoriety for its inefficiency. A recent study by the Fraser Institute quoted an Australian academic as saying: "We are in awe at the ineptitude of the Canadian immigration selection process."

Certainly neither will make the same mistake as the Reform party when it suggested cutting back on immigration, which earned it the "racist" tag that persists to this day.

Sadly this is true since all political parties are vying for the so-called "ethnic vote". It is sad because Canada accepts too many immigrants in the first place, a situation the inept rule of the Mulroney government burdened this country with when it arbitrarily raised immigration numbers by a whole 100,000. Interestingly enough, the last government that reduced immigration levels as a response to lower economic forecasts was the Trudeau Liberals. To do so now would be considered "racist". Welcome to the topsy-turvey land called Canada.

And there's the rub. For both parties, immigration is more a matter of politics than policy. Both are in a bidding war for the new Canadian vote, as the Conservatives try to break into urban areas in Vancouver, Toronto and Montreal. Neither has any real interest in fixing systemic problems, since doing so could alarm communities they are seeking to charm. Unsurprisingly, immigrant voters are in favour of more immigration, not necessarily smarter immigration.

This is also true. Immigrant communities are interested in more immigration and not less or smarter immigration putting them at odds with the real needs of the country and Canadians. I suspect there is a racist motive behind this because immigration to Canada today is mostly third world immigration with India and China leading the charge. This is offsetting, or displacing, the European character of the host population. In other words, it is preferable that Canada becomes less white.

To test my suspicions imagine if Canada increased immigration levels but announced that half of all immigrants will be from traditional sources (Europe, the U.S., Australia, New Zealand). I'm sure you can imagine the protestations at such an announcement and from where. It is not necessarily about numbers but just as importantly it is about the character of Canada's immigration policy. You see immigration is about race though we are expected to be colour blind. That is the host majority is supposed to be colour blind. Racial minority groups in Canada are not and are very race conscious. Canada is, for now, white majority, and minority groups are uncomfortable with this while the white majority of Canada is steadily being reduced to minority status and they are increasing becoming uncomfortable with this as well.

I say immigration is about race, or even ethnicity, because I cannot fully understand why an immigrant or an immigrant community would care so much as to how many immigrants Canada accepts each year and from where because, after all, they are already in the country. That is, unless, they are concerned about bringing in more of their own people to counter the overwhelming influence of Canada' European/North American culture and make Canada more Asian, or Indian, or African, or Hispanic. This doesn't serve the real needs of the host majority but it does serve the needs of the immigrant and immigrant community and thus immigration is more akin to colonialism. Anyhow I am digressing.

What is so frustrating is that no political party is offering real leadership in fixing Canada's immigration system. The issue doesn't even seem to be up for debate or discussion for the sake of the "ethnic vote" which is why we as individuals need to challenge it and press the issue whenever and wherever we can.

Friday, 12 September 2008

Immigration must be an election issue Ambassador James Bissett Wednesday, 10 September 2008

In his September 6 column in the National Post, Robert Fulford wrote that the forthcoming election was one that was “going nowhere.” One of the reasons it may be going nowhere is because some of the most important issues facing Canada are not going to be discussed. One of the most critical of these is immigration. Canada is facing an immigration crisis but immigration policy will not be on the agenda of any of the political parties.

In the so-called “ethnic ridings” each of the parties will promise to keep immigration levels high and will repeat the myth that we need immigration to combat our aging population and keep the economy growing by supplying desperately needed skilled workers for our labour force. Most economists in Canada and elsewhere have concluded that immigration does little to enhance the economy and that immigrants cost more in the benefits they receive than in the taxes they contribute. However, our politicians are not concerned about facts – they are concerned about votes and see every new immigrant as a potential voter. What counts for our politicians is numbers.

[...]

Canadians are led to believe that most of the immigrants and temporary workers are selected because they have skills, education and training that will enable them to contribute to our (and their) economic welfare. The fact is that only about 17% of our immigration intake is selected for economic reasons. The remaining 83% come to Canada because they have been sponsored by their relatives or because they are refugees, or there are humanitarian reasons for admitting them. It’s little wonder then that 51% of those immigrants who have landed since the early 1990’s are living below the poverty line.

His stated figure of 17% of immigrants enter Canada for economic purposes is the lowest I have seen so far. The highest is around 25% so it is safe to say that 17-25% of all immigrants enter Canada via the economic class. When we factor in immediate family members to that number (wife and dependent children of the successful economic immigrant applicant) the figure jumps. Thus, officially the government and mass immigration advocates can say that half of all immigrants enter Canada through the economic class but you have to be aware that the spouse and any children are included in those numbers. So, strictly speaking, it is a lie to say that half of all immigrants to Canada are here for economic reasons. The real number, as has been just pointed out, is much, much lower.

There are more effective ways of helping resolve global refugee and humanitarian problems than by immigration. Augmented developmental assistance and increased financial contributions to international refugee organizations would be more useful. More to the point, our politicians do not justify the high numbers on humanitarian grounds but tell us immigration is for the benefit of our economy and our labour force - and this is simply not true.

[...]

Canadians are known to have one of the largest ecological footprints of any country in the world and every immigrant who enters Canada from Asia within several months acquires a similar size footprint as the average Canadian. The extraordinary high levels of immigration since the early 1990’s destined to Canada’s three major urban centres of Toronto, Vancouver and Montreal, have caused serious environmental problems: traffic congestion, garbage disposal, escalating health, education and social welfare costs, as well as rising crime rates. Sadly, the stress on an already eroding infrastructure caused by massive immigration is a subject that cannot be discussed because of an ideological hang up about multiculturalism and diversity which for some reason now symbolizes the twin pillars of the new Canadian identity.

If you get the opportunity to attend a candidates meeting then press the immigration issue but arm yourself with the facts first. Never ask a question you don't know the answer to. You can safely assume that the candidates, or your MP, are totally ignorant of the reality of Canada's "immigration crisis" and you can easily dumbfound them when presented with information gleaned from this blog and elsewhere. Believe me, I have first hand experience with this. They will spew the same tired rhetoric that is so easily refutable.

If questioning the candidates or your MP is a daunting proposition then challenge the assumptions whenever they arise in conversation with your family, friends, neighbours, or co-workers. The point is to get the word out and get people thinking and let them know that it is okay to criticize Canada's immigration policy openly but do it with civility and compassion. This is our country. We have a say in how it is to be governed and it is our right to openly disagree with issues that are affecting the society and country we live in.

Also, out of blogger courtesy I give a nod to five feet of fury which is where I poached the above link from, among others, and will probably not be the last. It's because Kathy Shaidle is a much better blogger than I could ever be. See for yourself and check out her blog.

JERUSALEM–Crew members for Israel's main air carrier are now on high alert while overnighting in Toronto after "terror cells" began monitoring their activities there, according to a front-page report in yesterday's edition of Haaretz, a leading Israeli newspaper.

The unattributed account could not be independently confirmed, but it appeared to emanate from Shin Beit, Israel's domestic intelligence agency.

"Suspected terrorists" were recently detected observing El Al crew members staying at the Sheraton Centre Toronto, according to the newspaper.

That's this gist of it but what follows is what we Canadians should be concerned about:

Inbar said Hezbollah might choose Canada as a site for launching a reprisal attack against Israelis.

"Canada is an easy country to get into," he said. "Canada is a possibility, but I think there are easier targets in Latin America."

I repeat I do not know who truthful this story is. It might be part of some propaganda war aimed to discredit Hezbollah. And even if it is false there is some truth to what the story tells.

Canada is an easy country to get into. And some groups are fighting their wars here in Canada in some capacity or another. Most of it is in the guise of fund raising be it through front groups or crime. Some of it is a propaganda war seeking to court Canadian attitudes to favour one side or another. But others have actually killed people. The Air India bombing was an act of terrorism plotted and executed on Canadian soil (not to mention the largest mass murder in Canadian history).

This is an unintended consequence of mass immigration and the failure of recent immigrant groups to fully assimilate and identify with Canadian culture. Whatever happens overseas will make here eventually. Because of the relative ease one can enter the country James Bissett points out that Canada's immigration system is a security threat to the United States thus potential harming our relations with that country. Some may just attack American (or Israeli or what have you) sites within Canada bringing death and destruction to Canadian citizens.

Greater screening is needed but more so Canada needs to seriously reduce its immigration intake. Indeed we may need to stop outright the importation of people from countries with high terrorist activity.

Saturday, 6 September 2008

Here is a revealing article care of the Ottawa Citizen. It is about one man's experience at the Canadian consulate in Hong Kong and an exposure of the corruption that plagues Canada's immigration system.

One man's China crusade

Donna Jacobs, The Ottawa CitizenPublished: Monday, August 25, 2008

For Canadian diplomat Brian McAdam, it wasn't that he had uncovered the lucrative sale of Canadian visas during his posting at Canada's Hong Kong consulate.

Both Canadian and Chinese consular staff, he says, were selling visas to members of the Chinese mafia and Communist China's intelligence service. The price, he heard, ranged from $10,000 to $100,000 per visa.

It wasn't that reports he sent to his bosses in Canada -- details on murderers, money launderers, smugglers and spies trying to enter Canada -- were met with silence or mostly destroyed.

It wasn't dozens of threatening calls -- "Stop what you're doing or you're going to find yourself dead" -- from Triad members during his 1989-1993 stint in Hong Kong.

What finally broke him down, he says, was "the incredible feeling of betrayal from my colleagues. I'd worked with these people for years."

[...]

In his 850-page manuscript --working title The Dragon's Deception -- he writes: "I was mocked, demeaned and threatened in a hostile environment while dealing with some of the world's most ruthless criminals. Staff in both Hong Kong and in Ottawa gave copies of my confidential reports about some of the criminals to the gangsters themselves, and that greatly put my life at risk. I received death threats for a number of years but no one has ever been concerned about my safety. The big question (was): Why did Canadian diplomats in Hong Kong and bureaucrats in Ottawa do whatever they could to destroy my work and myself?"

Concealing his ill health, Mr. McAdam supplied the team with extensive documentation of China's criminals and the Communist government's ambitious program of acquisition, espionage and political influence in Canada and around the world.

[...]

A seven-year investigation ensued. Seven RCMP investigators came and went. "As soon as one (Mountie) would investigate, they'd pull him off," Mr. McAdam says. "Another officer would come along, start to make discoveries and would be pulled off."

"I believe both probes (by the Sidewinder team and by the RCMP) had considerable political interference to shut them down," says Mr. McAdam, "and it seemed to be coming from the highest levels."

[...]

"At least six investigations by the U.S. Senate and Congress, from 1997 to 2003, corroborated Sidewinder's findings," he says. "Though senior management at CSIS maligned the report as 'rumour-laced conspiracy theory,' others saw it as 'groundbreaking' and 'years ahead of the curve.' "

Ward Elcock, who retired in 2004, was CSIS director at the time.

Since then, the FBI has named China as the biggest intelligence threat to the U.S., says Mr. McAdam.

And Canada, he says, is now known as "one of the world's centres for Chinese organized crime and espionage."

I'm dismayed at how little media attention this has received so far. Canada's national security is being undermined at the Hong Kong consulate yet nary a peep out Toronto's "progressive" news media.

Asian gangs pretty much control the drug trade in Canada as well as counterfeiting and people smuggling, undoubtedly due to the lax policing at our China based consulates where Chinese gangsters, and Chinese spies, are purchasing Canadian Visas.

China is an emerging power and has empirical aspirations. It is exporting its people overseas and effectively establishing overseas colonies (what we euphemistically refer to as "communities"). How will China use its expatriate community to influence politics in Canada? Given Canada's multicultural domestic policy, and the new found Chinese pride that was on display during the Beijing Olympics, should we be so shocked that the Chinese living here in Canada are more loyal to Beijing than to Ottawa?

This is one of the problems of bringing in too many people from one source country. Because of the size of China's population a systemic bias is at play in Canada's immigration system which allows so many of them into the country. It's not that Canada needs so much Chinese immigration over, say, South African immigration. It's that there are so many applying. This is why India and China are the top two source countries. It's becuase those applications outnumber everyone else. Beyond that, there is no legitimate reason to be bringing in so many Chinese and Indian immigrants.

A quota system is needed. We should cap the number of applicants that can apply from any country to prevent the kind of immigration flood from so few countries that we are now experiencing. By doing so we can close consulates in corruption prone countries like China and India.

What is disconcerting about this scandal is that it was being hushed up and allowed to go on when Jean Chretien was in the Prime Minister's Office. Incidentally, he recently criticized Stephen Harper for skipping the opening ceremonies of the Beijing Olympics. It makes you wonder what was going on during the Chretien years. It also makes you wonder if such behaviour is at work at other Canadian consulates. If it is then who is guarding our country's borders?

I have to say I am not surprised that this is happening in China. The Chinese cannot be fully trusted and we need to approach that country with caution.